--Jesus
Game of Thrones
Throughout my journey I've read, pondered, endured and practiced a variety of approaches to understanding Jesus' words. It is not unusual to find "bible" teachers who conveniently exempt themselves from obedience to Jesus' words by impressive terminology like "dispensation", "hermenuetics", "systematic theology", and so forth. But the only way to truly understand His words and His way is to practice them!
How does this quote from Jesus lend itself to obedience? Doesn't it apply to the twelve apostles some time in the future judgement of the world? Think that if you will, but I believe the "one day" pointed to a time when individuals, those who put into practice the righteousness the Righteous One came to teach us, would have the moral authority to "judge" kings. We do this regularly here in the United States through our election cycles.
The founders of America understood how critical this kind of discernment was to our survival as a free people:
Have the leaders in our country "hardened their hearts" and "turned away from these righteous words?" You be the judge! Frederic Bastiat, an 1800's French economist, wrote: "Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property. But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder. ...men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly.
...It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder. ...The consequence of this perversion is "erasing from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice. No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make the laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law." --Bastiat, The Law
When today's American lawmakers both refuse to even read the laws beforehand and live under those they pass, they must be held accountable by those who fearlessly live by Jesus' righteousness, and possess in themselves the moral authority to judge the actions of elected officials!
Rise up
O men of God,
have done with lesser things.
Give heart and, soul and mind and strength
to serve the King of Kings.
Don't think for a moment that we are not serving the King of Kings by living according to His righteous words and insisting the same for those who direct the affairs of our country!
How does this quote from Jesus lend itself to obedience? Doesn't it apply to the twelve apostles some time in the future judgement of the world? Think that if you will, but I believe the "one day" pointed to a time when individuals, those who put into practice the righteousness the Righteous One came to teach us, would have the moral authority to "judge" kings. We do this regularly here in the United States through our election cycles.
"But neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man." -- Samuel Adams, (Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap (Kindle Edition Locations 739-742).
Have the leaders in our country "hardened their hearts" and "turned away from these righteous words?" You be the judge! Frederic Bastiat, an 1800's French economist, wrote: "Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property. But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder. ...men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly.
...It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder. ...The consequence of this perversion is "erasing from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice. No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make the laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law." --Bastiat, The Law
When today's American lawmakers both refuse to even read the laws beforehand and live under those they pass, they must be held accountable by those who fearlessly live by Jesus' righteousness, and possess in themselves the moral authority to judge the actions of elected officials!
Rise up
O men of God,
have done with lesser things.
Give heart and, soul and mind and strength
to serve the King of Kings.
Don't think for a moment that we are not serving the King of Kings by living according to His righteous words and insisting the same for those who direct the affairs of our country!
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Comments are welcome. You can post them here or send me an email: clyon2msu@gmail.com. Thanks for reading, hope you are encouraged, blessed, challenged and grow stronger in your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Charlie